By Angela Marshall
Half of the Nassau County Temporary Districting Commission, created last year to recommend changes to the county's 19 legislative districts, is promoting a plan to remove that one district from Corbin's authority and place it with the rest of the village in the hands of Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin).
That is just one of several boundaries the five Democratic members of the commission believe should be changed to comply with the one person, one vote standard. The five Republican members of the commission disagree and have come up with a different plan, which makes few changes to the current boundaries but, they say, still complies with the law.
The committee was to have made a recommendation to the legislature last week, but the members were unable to come up with a compromise plan. The 11th member of the commission, chairperson Barbara Patton, was not allowed to vote.
Both plans will now go before the Democrat-led legislature, but a lock on the changes is not certain. Corbin, according to high-ranking officials, does not want to give up some of the areas the Democrats have targeted for change and has threatened to vote with Republicans. He could not be reached for comment.
Minority Leader Peter Schmitt called the Democratic plan vicious gerrymandering, done to improve the party's chances in future elections. Schmitt pointed to the fact that there have been two Republican-led and two Democrat-led legislatures during that body's seven-year history as evidence that the current boundaries already comply with the one person, one vote standard.
The district boundaries were drawn by a bipartisan commission formed by U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt in 1994.
Every 10 years, following the U.S. census, population shifts are to be studied and the district lines redrawn to make sure an equal number of residents live in each
district and that minority voting power is not diluted. Schmitt believes that by removing the West End residents from the county's minority district, District 2, represented by Corbin, the Democrats are doing just that.
Scannell defended the Democratic plan, saying Corbin's area has 10,000 more people than it should and that the one person, one vote standard requires a change in boundaries. He's got to lose 10,000, Scannell said. We're forced, really, by constitutional law.
Each district should have about 70,000 residents if the new boundaries are to stand up in court, Scannell continued.
The 5th legislative district has about 19,000 registered Republican voters and 11,000 registered Democratic voters. The West End election district would add about 500 registered Democrats to the 5th district, according to Scannell. Nothing that would have any real effect, he said.
The Legislature has until March 4 to enact new boundaries.
